Penelope
by Foolish Mortal
Summary: JPIII On camera, he looked smaller, more withdrawn, introspective. If the news networks had known he was such a neurotic old maid, maybe they would have called Dr. Cummings or De Silva. They should have interviewed his dig assistant." AU. Grant/Brennan
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Jurassic Park or its characters. If I did, they would have gone with Spielberg's original idea for the third movie. **

Written for the JP3 community on Livejournal but too late for the smallfandomfest. There were images included in this, but obviously they can't come through.

Broken up into segments because I realised what a giant monster of a story it was if posted as a whole. This story has been updated from its old archived state with the newest copy from my LiveJournal.

Inspiration from "These Foolish Things" by Billie Holiday and the gorgeous "The Badlands Aren't So Bad" fan art, posted in the same LJ community.

_Sources used in research_: Big thank you to Park Pedia, Google Maps, and IMDB's Jurassic Park i-III online scripts for getting the facts straight.

_Notes:_

References and quotes drawn mainly from Jurassic Park I and Jurassic Park III.

AU: Sometimes the smallest changes have the biggest consequences

The Italics command sometimes malfunctions. Let me know if you spot any wrongly formatted test. Italics are utilized only for flashbacks.

* * *

On camera, he looked smaller, more withdrawn, introspective. The cameraman zoomed up a little closer on his face, and he ducked away his eyes. The cameraman grinned and tracked him anyway. The guy didn't like interviews that much, it seemed. But even the freshest undergrads on the dig could have said that- when they heard he was being lined up for the hadrosaurid cover story, they'd laughed. But everyone wanted him nowadays, the head of the University of Montana's paleontology digs, the associate professor all the students talked about. If the news networks had known he was such a neurotic old maid, maybe they would have called Dr. Cummings or De Silva. They should have interviewed his dig assistant.

Skov was right there with her pressed suit and freshly applied lipstick, shoving her microphone into his face. The boom guy tried to get as close as he could without getting into the shot. Skov had wanted to film in the main tent, and it was noisy as hell.

"So, Dr. Brennan. We've all heard the news about your find up here at Fort Peck. Are you excited?"

Dr. Brennan made some sort of vague noncommittal noise and shrugged.

The cameraman bit the inside of his cheek, tried not to laugh, kept the camera steady. This guy was _great_. Janet had her work cut out for her.

To her credit, she kept going undeterred. "Would you mind telling us a little about the fossils you identified?"

Dr. Brennan looked a little reluctant. "Ms. Skov-"

"-Janet," she chastised, smiling affectionately at the camera.

"Janet, then. Um, the excavation took some time, but we finally ID'd the bones we found as Anatotitan copei. Well preserved." His voice was so soft. Damn, they should have miked him, even if it meant stealing from Powell's crew.

"Well, most of us wouldn't have the first clue what that is." She laughed.

Dr. Brennan offered her a tired smile. He played professor enough during term. "Anatotitan copei is from the hadrosaurid…" he tried again as he saw her face blank. "It's a duck-billed kind of dinosaur. Really distinctive," -He gestured sharply- "Duck-billed snout, characteristic of a lot of hadrosaurs. Lived, um, at the end of the Cretaceous era. That's the era of the K-T mass extinction."

He had lost her. "Interesting. How about telling us the story of how you found it?"

He shrugged and retracted a little into his plaid shirt. "Miss Wallace could actually tell you more about it. She's the one that found it. Miss Wallace." He waved one of the graduate students over from the workbenches.

She looked too young, too washed out and nervous for all that she was dark from working under the Montana sun. Her eyes were huge. "Found them about hundred feet back that way behind the main site," she said, pointing. "We just got lucky, I guess. We'd been gridding that area, and I just happened to find a piece of vertebrae in the C-2 cell."

"Were you excited?" Janet asked.

Wallace shrugged. "It was a small piece of fossil- could have been anything. When we started uncovering more of the skeleton- yeah, it was exciting. And finding out the bones were 'saurid was unbelievable. All we usually get around here is raptors."

"The department must be thrilled to have a find like this turn up at your dig."

Zooming imperceptibly back to Dr. Brennan. The camera picked up the small line between his eyes.

"It's not my dig," he said darkly. "I just make sure everything runs."

"But with your outstanding record with the department, I'm sure the rumors about having you officially directing the summer digs are true-"

"-They are. I didn't take them up. I don't take over other people's projects." A vague humorless smile. "It's not polite."

It was the longest thing he'd said about himself in the interview, and she flashed him a smile, trying to share his joke. "Other people's projects?" she said. Then, "Oh, I see. But surely he-"

"-Thank you, Ms. Skov." His handshake was a little too firm. "It's been…great talking with you."

Didn't miss a beat. Maybe she just wanted to get the hell out of there. "You too, Dr. Brennan. It's been an honor. This has been Janet Skov at the Fort Peck dig site for News 13."

It was a nice final shot of the three of them. "That's a wrap."

"Thank you, Miss Wallace." Janet nodded to the graduate student. "And thank you for your time, Dr. Brennan." Now that the camera was down, Janet finally allowed herself to look flustered.

He shook her hand automatically. "Sure." He pulled away quickly. "My dig assistant Cheryl will show you out. Hey, Cheryl."

"I've got them, Dr. Brennan," Wallace said.

"Thanks, Miss Wallace. If you would excuse me." And he was gone, retreating to the back benches.

The cameraman smiled to himself again. They'd met a lot of weird dudes while covering stories, but this guy was in a league of his own.

Maria Wallace was used to the song and dance by now. Start with 'Sorry about that' and put something pacifying in the middle, and people were pretty good about it. Professors had the luxury of being eccentric and awkward without anyone calling them out. Even with his track record, Dr. Brennan had really crashed and burned on this one. He had almost topped that grad student Jimar "Mute" Henry, who was tall and dark and good at looming silently in his awful glaring Hawaiian shirts, but turned red and monosyllabic in front of cameras.

She had been at the dig for her last years of undergrad and still going now at grad school, so she was pretty used to him. Of course, back then he hadn't been Dr. Brennan yet- still working on his doctorate. God, she didn't know whether she could have gone in for the long haul- seven more years of school? Yeah right.

But even when not-quite-Dr. Brennan had been busy with his research and exams, he'd still haunted the dig during the summers, working slightly insubordinately under another professor the department had sent over. Word was that Dr. Brennan had always been quite the stock figure at the dig, even in his graduate days. She hadn't been too surprised a couple of semesters ago when he'd turned up as an associate professor to teach one of her classes. He pretty much lived in the paleontology department. She remembered her first impression of him as a young kind of sad guy. His eyes always looked vaguely shell shocked.

Dr. Brennan eyed the students at the workbenches as he walked past. They were doing a decent job for being-

"-Hey hey." He stopped one of the newbies that was brushing the hell out of a piece of bone. "Gently, okay? This isn't like doing the dishes. Here." He picked up a brush. "Like this."

He left the guy trying to mimic his sweeping careful movements and scanned over the other workbenches a little more critically than maybe he should have. Now he understood why Alan always grumbled so much about overenthusiastic volunteers and fresh faced undergraduates who didn't know one end of a chisel from another.

Wallace, though. Bless that girl. He really hadn't wanted to talk to that Janet woman, who would have just squeezed him for more information, given the chance. He felt she was a little disappointed. Guess she had thought he was one of the young ones- he would be more new, more…vibrant. Right. The students his first year teaching at U Montana had thought the same thing.

He was a young professor, and word was that he had been into rock climbing and hangliding before going for his doctorate, so people had showed up in his lecture hall supposing he was one of the 'cool' associate professors on campus, but he had laid those assumptions to rest on the first day. He had walked in looking distracted and tired and _old._

But despite their initial doubts, his first class had admitted that he knew his stuff and had a talent for translating it from foreign paleo-speak into something they could actually understand. He passed out his trademark weak smiles once in a while, but there was a fierce quiet enthusiasm to the way he taught. It was magnetic.

The number of students sticking with their paleontology majors increased substantially after that first year. A lot of finger pointing was done at Dr. Brennan, who was the first to deny it, but enrollment in Geology 312: Dinosaur Paleontology still doubled. He tried to put off the students, but his students wouldn't be put off and clamored for his class every semester, much to his resignation.

He would never figure out how exactly the department talked him into heading the Fort Peck digs. God knows that only got him thinking about old ghosts more than he ever wanted, but for some reason he had said yes. Worst damn decision of his life, and he'd been volunteering for it for the past three years. He never let them list him as the head of the dig; he was just filling in temporarily, he said. He'd said the same about the 312 class and look where that had got him.

His worst fears had been confirmed the day the signup sheet for the first dig went up in front of his office as half his 312 students (and paleontology majors from any other year that were able to squeeze their names in) had filled up the sheet by the end of the week. Of course, most of them had probably heard this was Dr. Grant's dig and signed up. (Everyone in the paleontology world had a slight crush on Alan Grant.) But they kept coming back for Dr. Brennan. So he found himself getting into Alan's iconic rickety truck and driving those five and a half hours every summer.

----

_He liked it like this, just Alan and him rattling through the long stretches of flat Montana highway with the windows rolled down, rushing into that dry summer heat. He made sure he always had something ridiculous blasting through the radio just to make Alan grumble._

"_Alan." Billy turned down Super Sounds of the Seventies. "It was a left back there."_

"_I don't think so."_

"_Alan, pretty sure it was a left."_

"_We keep going straight, go right after three exits."_

"_No, you're thinking of-" he snapped his fingers. "You're thinking of the dig last summer at Snakewater. It was straight through the junction after the exit, right? That went into Choteau. You're thinking of last summer."_

"_I think I know where I'm going, Billy."_

"_No. Hey, look, give me that map in the door, will you?" The map almost encompassed the cabin, hiding the old receipts and empty cans of soda lingering on the dashboard._

"_Can't see the road," Alan protested._

"_What's to see? It's just straight all the way down. Look, we want to go into Jordan here, right? We have to take 94 down to Miles City and then take a left all the way to Jordan. You're taking us into Terry."_

"_It's a shortcut."_

"_It is _not_ a shortcut. Turn us around."_

"_I _know_ where I'm going."_

"_Al-_an_…"_

_At Billy's continuing insistence, they finally stopped at the post office in Glendive for directions. _

"_Where are you going?" the guy at the desk demanded. "You already passed Jordan, mister. You should have taken a left down by Miles City. Any further and you'd have been in North Dakota. You got a map?"_

"_Um, yeah." He was grateful Billy had poked his head out the passenger seat window at the last minute, shouted at him to come back, and pressed the old beaten up map into his hands._

"_Right." The clerk got a highlighter out. Alan tried not to grab it out of his hand. He hated when people drew on his maps. "You have to take 200 up to Circle city here, and then keep going into Jordan." _

_Just two neat highlighted lines. They'd been driving for hours all for two straight lines._

"_Thanks. Now uh, how long to Fort Peck?"_

"_Fort Peck? Hey, that's completely different. If you want Fort Peck, you've got to stop here." A small circle. An arrow. "And take 24 all the way up and then turn here. That's uh…North Big Horn Street."_

"_Alright. Thanks again."_

"_Sure."_

_The passenger seat was empty when he got back. Damn, they didn't have time for this._

"_Hey, Alan."_

_He turned around. "Billy, damn it, I told you to stay in the truck. Last thing we need is to get towed."_

"_I was right there." He had the grace to sound affronted and gestured with an elbow. "There's a milkshake place next to the post office." He offered Alan one of the tall Styrofoam cups. "You like strawberry banana, right?" He grinned. "So where are we going?"_

_Billy was never one for 'I told you so's.'_


	2. Chapter 2

When the weekend came around, his students didn't feel weird going around the neighboring towns. People knew them. People knew _him_. When he'd been the one puttering around Fort Peck and Jordan, he'd been one of 'Dr. Grant's kids.' Now he was the one hearing the stories about 'Dr. Brennan's kids,' so polite and interesting to talk to. Or course, all the students had been too scared of Alan to toe the line, but Billy was under no such illusions about himself. Cheryl had tried to explain it to him once. He gave them so much freedom, so much support; he was one of those professors they just couldn't bear to disappoint. He remembered shrugging and replying with something sarcastic.

He had gone out a lot on Fridays during grad school, usually to Stockman's or Hell Creek Grill. Nowadays, he only left his trailer and his bones when he had to. It was almost down to a schedule. Every once in a while, he would dump his and Alan's clothes into a hamper, load it into the back of his truck, and make the trip to the local Laundromat in Glasgow. It was the next town over, but everybody there knew him too and called him by the old nicknames to embarrass him in front of the students. They knew him from way back when he'd stop by with Alan to pick up laundry and have a couple of ice cream sodas at the local joint. And when the time rolled around every year for the two of them to dust off the suits and go off for another ridiculous fundraising tour, they'd never gone anywhere else but Laurie's drycleaners.

The door still had the same annoying electronic doorbell that didn't shut up for ten seconds. The flickering fluorescent lights and the black and white checkerboard tiles- it all looked exactly as it always had, but he didn't recognize the girl at the counter. Laurie must have just hired new people.

"Hi," he said. "Where's Belle?"

The girl shrugged. She had two tiny silver skull-and-crossbones studs in each ear. "Moved to Nevada with her folks. I'm Mer."

"Bill, nice to meet you. I'm here to pick up some dry cleaning."

She snapped her gum. "Sure. What's the name?"

"Grant. Alan Grant."

"Mm'kay."

"And mine. Brennan. Should be right next to it. Laurie knows- I usually just get them both together."

She grinned. The rubber bands in her braces were electric green. "Oh, Laurie talks about you. So _you're_ Grant's kid, huh? She told me she's been here more'n ten years- guy never picked up his own dry cleaning."

He managed a smile. "Nope. Never did."

The register dinged mellowly. "That's five twenty."

He gave her a five and hunted around in his pockets for change. He always had some in there somewhere.

"_Hey, Laurie. How're things?"_

"_Billy! Back again this summer? Shouldn't even have to ask."_

"_Here to get Alan's dry cleaning. He has this conference next week and God, when I dug out his suit from the back of the closet, it was- hey, wow, you're a miracle worker! It looks good as new- can't even see that random mustard stain he got on the sleeve."_

"_Yeah yeah, you old flatterer." She rang him up. "Got you picking up his dry cleaning too- so you're the wife in this gig, huh?"_

"_Picking up? Yeah right." He automatically counted out five twenty and put the extra quarter in the tip jar. "He didn't even think about a suit until I said something. Would probably forget it here if I didn't come down and get it."_

_---_

"Hey, Bill." Cheryl leaned against the door jamb. "You ready for that fundraising tour?"

He folded one of his nicer shirts and tucked it in the bag next to his extra socks. "Yep. I'm just updating one of the old power points I put together for Alan. It should still be relevant."

"Which one is that about?"

"Raptor intelligence theory."

She snorted. "Way to give 'em nightmares, Bill."

A reluctant smile. "Better to scare them than put them to sleep."

"I hear that. You got your suit?"

"Yeah, just picked it up from Laurie's."

It was still on the wire hanger, wrapped in plastic with the stapled orange tag. He had squashed it awkwardly into his bag, hoping it wouldn't wrinkle. "I'm going to be gone a week, so help yourself to whatever's in the mini fridge before I lock up the trailer."

"Don't kid around with me, Bill- there's never anything in your fridge."

He shrugged. "Might be beer."

She grinned widely. "Now you're talking."

"Hey," he said as Cheryl made a beeline for his kitchen. "Where's my..."

"-On the table."

"Right." He shoved his flash drive into the front pocket of the old leather bag Alan had always taken with him on tours.

He had never missed an opportunity to make fun of it whenever Alan was in an earshot, but he'd found it lying around the trailer while cleaning the cupboards one day, and he had to admit it was handy for his notes and laptop. There were still notes and index cards left lingering in the zippered pockets and the bottom of the bag. They were half torn and covered with Alan's distinctive spiky writing. Those blue ballpoint pens- Alan never used anything else. Used to drive him nuts. The notes were almost illegible, but he'd found himself digging them out, piecing them together, and going through them anyway. He'd left them in there. They were _still_ there.

---

_Billy had a habit of inviting himself into the trailer. "Alan, where are you going now?"_

"_An invitation from our biggest sponsor, John Hammond."_

"_Really? What is it?"_

_Dr. Grant zipped up his suitcase. "Sorry, Billy. Can't tell you much about it myself. It's some kind of endorsement thing."_

"_Endorsement thing?" Billy repeated incredulously. A grin. "Is that like an apology for landing that stupid helicopter right on top of the dig?"_

"_Something like that," Grant said dryly. "Ellie and I will be gone for the week."_

"_Really? So uh, I guess that means I can't come with you this time."_

_Grant stopped what he was doing and met Billy's eyes for a moment. His expression was vague. "I wish I could take you with me. Billy, I…if only you could come- you would love it. You _ought_ to go. You…" He smiled ruefully. "I shouldn't bait you."_

_He shrugged and tried not to sound disappointed. "Sounds like fun if it's finally got you excited about something."_

_The half grimace smile. "Yeah. Hey, maybe next time."_

"_You bet, next time. I do a pretty good job looking out for you."_

"_Is that what they call it now? I thought you were just nosy."_

---

"…We've been studying the interior chamber in our raptor specimens to find a link between the larynx and here," –he stabbed at the diagram up on the screen with his pointer- "the upper plate. So we've theorized that the raptor might have been able to make bird-like sounds. They might have been capable of high level communication. This opens up a lot of questions about raptor social behavior and how they hunted. That's the basics of what my current research is about." He finally stopped, had a sip of water. "Any questions?"

Almost every hand in the auditorium went up. Back in the day, he would have smiled at that. But now-

"Any questions not related to Jurassic Park or InGen?"

About a third of the hands went down.

"Or the San Diego incident, which I wasn't involved in."

Another third of the hands went down.

"Or the rumors about Alan Grant, most of which is just idle speculation, I can tell you personally."

Now there were only a few hands still up. He wondered if he would be a more popular speaker at the school assemblies if he let himself talk about Isla Nublar. But no, he couldn't sell out, profit off that…theme park. That would make him just as bad as Peter Ludlow. He couldn't twist paleontology into some kind of harrowing adventure. Godammit, people had _died_. How could they ever expect him to tell a story like that?

No. Stick to the facts. Stick to the bones. That was all his conscious asked of him.

He pointed. "Yes, in the back with the blue shirt."

A teacher in the aisle passed the kid a mike. "Dr. Brennan, isn't all this theorizing kind of pointless now?" the student asked. "I mean, the news has been talking about the U.N and Costa Rica opening up Isla Sorna to research projects. Won't the scientists just go in and find out for themselves?"

The students began to murmur.

"Yes, won't paleontology just die out all together?" one of the teachers in front chimed and gave him a little vindictive smile.

The earth science teacher on stage who was serving as proctor jumped to his feet. "Hey hey, folks, I don't think-"

Dr. Brennan held up a hand. "-No, I feel this is a question that needs to be answered in light of the InGen incidents. Ms…"

"-Davies," the teacher supplied.

"Ms. Davies. Dinosaurs, _real_ dinosaurs, are the ones that lived sixty-five million years ago. They're what paleontologists find, they're what my job is about. What InGen and John Hammond created- they don't have context. They haven't learned how to _be_ dinosaurs. They're just…dolls."

The teacher looked unconvinced. Another student raised her hand. "So you wouldn't go back and study them if you could?"

Dr. Brennan gripped the sides of the lectern a little too tightly. The stagelights picked up a long broad scar running down one of his arms. "No. No, I wouldn't do that." He swallowed. "Um…thank you." He turned away. The applause was scattered and lukewarm. He had disappointed them. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

The proctor went up to the lectern and tapped the mike. "Hello?"

"Mr. Brighton!" some of his students in the second row shouted out.

Brighton grinned and waved back. "Hey, what's up, guys? Let's give Dr. Brennan another hand for taking time to come talk with us today." The applause was a little stronger this time. "Now let's welcome our next guest, Dr. Marie Gilmer from Montana State Missoula."

He stepped back behind the curtain as he saw Bill Brennan walk offstage. Dr. Brennan was already packing up his stuff when he found him.

"Hey, Smiley. Forget this?" He handed him a sleek looking flash drive that had been left in the laptop on stage.

"Hey, Richard. Thanks. Wouldn't want to leave my power point behind."

"I liked the presentation. Raptor intelligence, huh? Cool."

Dr. Brennan sighed. "You don't have to lie, you know. They think I'm boring as hell."

"Hey, no. It's just…well, you know how kids are these days. Listen, forget about Helen; that was out of line-"

"-No." He shook his head. "They're right. How can old bones and digging around in the dirt compare with real live dinosaurs?"

Brighton grimaced. "For what it's worth, I think you're right. Those InGen things, they're just…monsters."

"Yeah…" Dr. Brennan cleared his throat. "Um, thanks for having me back."

Brighton grinned. "Come on, Smiley, I should be thanking you. The science department loves me- getting the Grant-Brennan team to come every year? They thought it was great. Hey, thanks for keeping it going; just because Alan and I were old buddies back in the day doesn't mean you have to-"

"-No, no. I enjoy it. Really."

He beamed. "Great. Hey, um, I've got a free period between now and one o'clock- want to go grab some lunch?"

"Wish I could, but I've got to head over to Sacajewea Middle for an assembly in twenty minutes."

Brighton nodded. "Sure, I know- life on the fast track. Man, am I glad I'm out of that." They shook hands. "Take care of yourself, Smiley."

"You too, Richard."

He hoped Sacajawea would be a little kinder than Bozeman High. These kids nowadays- inured by their PS2s and their Saturday morning cartoons. He had never thought school would have to teach them how to wonder.

"Oh, hey!" Brighton shouted back at him.

He turned around.

"See you next year?"

"Next year?" Richard's expression was so nakedly hopeful, Billy just couldn't let himself do it. "Uh, yeah. Sure."

"Awesome."

Bill Brennan ducked his head, tucked his jacket a little closer, and shut the door behind him.

And in between grading papers during his free period, Richard Brighton sat back and wondered what had happened to the young enthusiastic guy that had earned his nickname 'Smiley' the instant Alan had introduced them. Sure, Alan was great on his own, but there was a certain spark when Bill Brennan would groan theatrically and tell Alan he was going to bore those kids into becoming liberal arts majors or the way he would make the students laugh and get the hands shooting up during the Q&A section. If you'd asked, Brighton would have said Bill Brennan had all the hallmarks of a first-class teacher. The kind people really _talk_ about.

He wondered what had happened to it all.


	3. Chapter 3

_Whenever they drove back into town, they always passed the station. U Montana had a field station at Fort Peck in an old building that used to be a laundry back in the day. They did the major casting and molding of the fossils that came in. Julia Rudder had let him check out the work they were doing for one of the T-Rex pieces- it was going in the Fort Peck Interpretive Center & Museum. He couldn't wait to see it finished._

"_Hey, Billy, phone for you."_

"_Okay, hold on." He bookmarked his textbook and went to get the phone from Julia. _

"_Tell him to stop calling the field station, okay? You've got a cell phone on you."_

_He covered the mouthpiece. "Sorry, Jules. He's just not used to the satellite phone. Feels better if he calls the landlines, you know?" He gave her a placating grin._

_The smile must have done something, because she just shook her head and walked away saying this was absolutely the last time, no matter that she said that every week. Privately, she thought Billy would be quite the heartbreaker if he ever figured out what that smile did to people. Maybe it was worse that he had no idea._

_Billy put the phone to his ear. "Hey, Alan. How're you?"_

"_Great, Billy." He sounded great, out of breath and happier than Billy had ever heard him. "How are you? How's the dig?"_

"_My _God_, Alan, I hope getting the doctorate is more laughs than grad school. I mean, I'm loving it, but I feel like my head is about to explode."_

_On the other end, Alan began to laugh. Billy hadn't heard him laugh like that in a long time, and he caught himself smiling involuntarily. "Hang in there is all I can say, Billy. How's Abadjian?"_

"_Doing a pretty good job filling in for you," Billy admitted. "He hasn't even crashed any of the computers yet."_

"_Am I ever going to hear the end of that?"_

"_Alan, I used to think it was just you, but the computers seem to blue screen whenever you're around. You got some electromagnets in you or something?"_

_Alan grunted, and Billy had to smile. The minute they hung up, Alan was probably going to turn around and ask someone on the team what 'blue screen' was. Speaking of which- "How's the expedition? This is the one that John Hammond guy contacted you about, right? Is Ellie there with you?"_

"_Yeah, she's here. Ellie, it's Billy." The sound of the phone exchanging hands._

_He couldn't tell if Ellie sounded happier than usual. Ellie always sounded happy. "Hey, Billy, how's school?"_

"_Hi, Ellie. It's going pretty well- almost over. Did Alan tell you I'm going for my doctorate?"_

"_You are? That's terrific! Oh, you're going to enjoy it so much-"_

_A voice interrupted from the background. "Hey, Dr. Grant, tell your girlfriend your five minutes are up. I gotta phone my ma, jeez."_

_The phone exchanged hands again. There was a rushing sound, as if Ellie and Alan were walking through grass or leaves. "Billy?" _

"_Who was that, Alan?"_

"_Just some chaos theorist Hammond brought along." Alan sounded disgruntled. "One minute, Ian!"_

_Chaos theorist? Why would they bring a chaos theorist to a dig? But Alan would just go quiet if he said something about it. Just another thing he wasn't supposed to ask. Alan said they were lucky to even get to call people._

"_How are the bones?" Billy asked instead. "Find anything?"_

"_You could say that," Alan replied dryly. "I'll have to ask Hammond if I can bring you along next time. You've _got_ to see this."_

"_Oh, Alan, really? Wow, that would be-"_

_Suddenly a strange low rumbling came through the phone. "Alan? What was that?"_

_Nothing._

"_Alan? Hey, Alan!"_

"…_Billy, I've got to go."_

_He just faintly heard Ellie's gasp and an "Oh my God."_

_The appreciative whistle in the back must have been the chaos theorist. "Hey, forget calling my ma. I'll just…wow, that _is_ something, Mr. Hammond, I'll give you that."_

_Huh. Guess they _had_ found some bones. "I understand. Hope you find something good, Alan. Bye."_

"_Bye, Billy," Alan said, but he sounded distracted._

"_Head between your legs, Alan. Sit down!" Ellie said sharply before the phone disconnected._

Alan had come back changed. They had all come back changed.

Ellie and Alan…he had always thought those two were good together.

But Ellie- suddenly, she'd lost that little shine in her eyes. Suddenly, she couldn't bear the thought of digging alongside Alan for the rest of her life. Suddenly, she couldn't stand the bones anymore.

And Alan. Alan looked so tired. He looked older. The way he'd looked at the velociraptor fossils sometimes…it had made Billy's blood run cold.

---

"_Hey, Alan." He had seen the light in the trailer; of course Alan would fly back at some unnecessary time of night. "How was the trip?"_

"_Awful." He unzipped his jacket a little viciously. It looked like it had gone through a lawnmower. "If I never go on an expedition again it will be too soon."_

"_Uh huh." Alan didn't seem so enthusiastic anymore. Billy glanced around. "Where's your bag?"_

_The shirt under his denim button up was streaked with dirt. "Left it on the island."He sat on the bed to unlace his hiking boots. They had mud all over them._

_Billy stared at him. "Alan, _really_? Jeez, how could you forget your bag?"_

_Grant just scowled back and flapped out his denim shirt. Dust and bits of grass flew into the air. "Didn't forget it, just left it behind."_

"_Yeah, like that's so much better. See, this is why you need me around- take me with you next time."_

_Grant dropped his half folded shirt and turned. The look on his face was almost…murderous. "I hope you never have to go to that godforsaken place. Ever."_

"_Alan." Billy crouched down and put a hand on his shoulder. "What happened?" _

"_I…I can't…you'd never…there's a non-disclosure agreement." He swallowed. "If John Hammond ever calls you up about anything, you tell him to go straight to hell."_

_It wasn't a joke, but Billy laughed anyway. Alan was creeping him out. "Good deal. Hey, you want a glass of water or something? I make a mean microwave coffee."_

"_Coffee." His eyes looked a little desperate around the edges. "Yes, coffee."_

"_Coming right up." He turned back around. "And for God's sake, stop trying to fold that shirt and just throw it in the wash."_

---

All his clothes felt stiff with sweat and had the strange stale living-out-of-the-suitcase smell.

At least when Alan came back from tour, Billy was always there to carry his bag and trail behind him like a dopey kid carrying some pig-tailed girl's school books.

He arrived at eleven at night when there was no moon, and he could barely see the damned trailer. People were asleep- there was no one to meet him, take his bag, or ask how his trip had been.

The trailer was cool and dark and smelled too foreign. Across the room, he could see the answering machine light blinking red. He dropped his stuff on the couch and got himself a tepid glass of water. He toed off his shoes and plopped on the couch on top of his stuff. Public radio usually had something this time of night. Jazz. Brassy classical symphonies. Soft warbling operettas. Not that he would ever admit to liking those.

"…_and that was Robert W. Smith's new piece "An Everyday Saturday," which honors the people who lost their lives in the InGen San Diego incident seven years ago today. This is the San Diego commemorative edition of NPR's All Songs Considered. Coming up next, we've got-" _

He clicked off the radio. Was it really today? Had it really been so long? It felt like forever, as if he were too young to remember. It felt like just yesterday he'd turned on the old TV in the grad student lounge and watched the frantic hasty news reports- seen the long awful shadow and no no, it was a joke, it couldn't be- they were dead- they had been dead for millions of years. He had heard the foreign eerily familiar roar that he could _feel_ under his feet even through the television set. Thousands of years of racial memory passed down from the small mousy deltatheridium to the catlike megazostrodon made his muscles freeze up instinctively. The sound was much clearer now that he wasn't hearing it through the static of a satellite phone.

He'd grabbed his bag and run out of the lunch room with his keys between his teeth, taken the steps two at a time, and almost crashed into Alan as they were both heading into the parking lot. Out of some silent agreement, they'd piled into his truck and headed over to Ellie's. Alan had driven like a madman and they'd said nothing to each other the entire way. It was only when they were at Ellie's over cups of black instant coffee that they could finally explode into the 'never would haves' and 'how could this evers' and 'what ifs.' Always the 'what ifs.' Even to this day.

Billy gave up on the radio, drained his glass, and punched the answering machine button.

Beep.

"You have three new messages. First new message."

"_Hey, kid, it's Ian. Listen, Sarah and I are having a little get together next Saturday with the old gang, and we'd really like to you to come. The Murphys are going to be there too- hey, you'd better watch out for Lex. Think she likes you-"_

"_-Ian!" came Sarah's voice in the background._

_Ian snickered. "Right. So, about noon. It's pretty casual, just a cookout or something. See you there."_

Billy hit the button.

The machine beeped: "Message deleted. Next message."

"_Hi, it's Ellie. How've you been? Gosh, it's been a while. Just wondering if you were coming to Ian's party- I'd love to catch up-"_

Beep.

"Message deleted. Next message."

"_Dr. Brennan, it's Eric Kirby. Mr. Malcolm's invited us to lunch, and we were hoping you could make it. Just finished your new book, and I'd really like to talk to you about it."_ A hopeful silence. _"Um, so see you there."_

He lingered most over the last message and actually thought about it for a minute. He could drive up to Ian's place Saturday if he woke up early enough. He had delegated more and more responsibility to Cheryl when he was away. Surely she could take care of things. When he'd been Alan's dig assistant, he'd had no problems handling things alone…

Beep.

"Message deleted. End of messages."

He wondered for a moment why Ian had called him last.

Ian wasn't fooling anybody. No way a casual get together had coincided with the San Diego dates so perfectly. And Billy wondered if Ian would ever get tired of celebrating each day he was still alive and kicking. It wasn't just him- the rest of them were just as bad.

Back in the day after the first Jurassic Park disaster, Ian had done this kind of thing to Alan a lot. Most of the time, Alan had just grumbled about it to Billy and showed up to the party anyway, looking slightly pained and keeping his glass of punch in a death grip while Billy steered him around and charmed his way through yet another fraction of the populace.

-But really, he couldn't be leaving the dig too much- he'd just got back from the fundraising tour. What would the department say if he picked up and left again? And Dora was expecting him on Wednesday for the fossil casting.

Then, just as he'd decided he wasn't going on Saturday, he realized that Ian had never really expected him to either.

He hit the button again.

"Twelve saved messages. First saved message…"

"_Hey, Billy-"_

He smiled a little. "Hey, Alan."

"_-going to be at a conference in Berkeley next week- kind of unexpected. So…you'll be in charge for a few days. Don't let the undergrads get into the super glue. Um…bye."_

He grinned.

"Next saved message."

"_Billy, Ellie and Mark are probably going to do that cookout again for Fourth of July, so keep your calendar open. Okay, talk to you later."_

"Next saved message."

"_Hey. So…um, the department is having this…gala…thing next month for our sponsors. Awful- suits and ties and everything. Going to be boring as hell. I was just wondering if you…uh, had any plans and maybe if you wanted to…um, yeah. Sotalktoyoulater."_ The sound of a phone being abruptly disconnected.

"Next saved message."

He could hear his own voice too. Younger. Lighter.

"_Hi, Alan, it's me. Just checking up on the dig. I was-"_

_The phone got picked up on the other end. "-Billy? Hello, Billy?"_

"_Alan, hi! Sorry I won't get to make it there on time. Delta Airlines is on strike or something-"_

"_It's nothing. Say happy birthday to your mother for me."_

"_Sure. Man, she's going to be- hey, are we still on the machine?"_

"_Yeah. Don't know how to turn…the damn thing off…"_

"_Alan, just push the stop button."_

"_Where?"_

_Laughter. "Alan, the big blue button."_

"_I can't…wait, I've got i-"_

Billy snickered a little. Alan and technology. Some things never changed. He skipped ahead a little. He knew them all anyway.

"Next saved message."

"_Yo, Alan, it's Ian. Hey, guess you heard about what happened in Diego. Listen, I gotta talk to you- I'll be dropping by sometime. 'Kay, see you. Say hello to the kid for me."_

He checked the date on the machine. A few weeks after the InGen incident in California. So _this_ message had started this whole mess, huh? Ellie thought it was something to do with her but truth be told, it was _Ian_ that Billy sometimes hated a little. Why had Ian show up with Sarah that one day all bluster and grins with something fearful moving behind his eyes? Damn it, what right did those two have to come and pull the guts out of their world, worm into their little jealously hoarded pocket of the universe?

Beep.

"End of messages."

---

_When Alan opened the trailer door, Ian grinned that wise-guy grin and snapped off his shades. There was a woman beside him with her arms crossed. "Alan, great to see you. Where's the jailbait- is he still here this summer?"_

"_Is that Ian?" Billy shouted from underneath the table in the kitchen._

_Ian Malcolm grinned. "Yep, still here. What's up, Billy?" he shouted over._

"_Nothing mu-" He was interrupted by a crash of pots. "Jeez, Alan, you ever clean down here? I'm going to throw these in with the dishes in the tub. If you aren't using them, I might swipe them for the dig."_

"_Don't you dare," Grant shot back. "Stay away from my cupboards."_

_Billy just laughed._

"_You'd better watch him, Alan," Ian warned and then grinned, but it was a little nervous this time. "Hey, this is Sarah Harding. Sarah, this is Alan Grant."_

"_I've heard so much about you, Dr. Grant." She shook hands._

"_Likewise. Call me Alan."_

"_Yeah, that's great. Listen," Ian's voice had dropped. "Can you ditch Mr. Clean over there for a while? We've gotta talk to you about something."_

"_Ian, I already told you, I don't want to get involved with another one of your projects-"_

"_-There's another island," Ian interrupted. "Site B."_

_Grant's expression seemed to lock up for a minute. "Billy," he said over his shoulder. "Do me a favor, will you? I'd like to keep the department updated on what we've found so far. See if you can replicate the fossils we found this week on your Xerox machine."_

"_On my rapid prototyper, Alan?" Billy said, trying not to smile. "Sure, I'm on it."_

"_Great, thanks," Grant replied and shut the door behind Billy. Turned around. "What's Hammond done now?" he growled._

_Ian and Sarah exchanged looks._

_"Alan," Ian said gravely. "Have you ever heard of Isla Sorna?"_


	4. Chapter 4

Maria Wallace noticed Dr. Brennan had crept back to the dig without telling anybody. One minute he was on the road, the next minute, the guy was popping up behind you and muttering about defragmenting the computers again, like he did just about every two weeks. Something about people putting too much junk in the memory and slowing it down.

He was an outdoors kind of person- it was obvious just by looking at him. She would never have pegged him for a techno-nut, but there he was. He had apparently built their cult-worshipped rapid prototyper with _the _Lex Murphy when he was doing his doctorate.

He was great with the thumper and the radar detection equipment too. Sure, he was happy to train anybody that wanted to operate the probe, but he had a knack for finding fossils. The first day of the dig, he'd have all the newbies line up and touch the computer screen to see if "they had any magnets in them." Some private joke she guessed she was never going to understand.

Dr. Brennan was always slightly weird. Like one time her third or fourth year at the dig, they had been eating lunch and fiddling with the old radio that always sat in the back corner. It never really played anything good. There was always public radio but Jesus, that was for old people.

"Stop."

They jumped. Dr. Brennan never talked at the canteen unless students came up to him.

"Go back. Go back to the news channel."

She flipped back to the public broadcast obediently.

"…_survivors found floating in the waters around Puerto Rico. The locals call the area the La Cincos Muertes or The Five Deaths, which are reportedly the source of many urban legends. The three were picked up and taken to a military hospital early this morning."_

Dr. Brennan was flying out of the tent, sandwich jammed in his mouth, pulling on his jacket. "Cheryl, you're in charge till I get back."

"Where are you going? Hey, Bill! How long will you be gone?"

Dr. Brennan stopped, swiveled around for a minute. "I have to- I've been…" He gestured helplessly and ran back to his trailer. When he'd called to check up on the dig, it had been from some military hospital. He'd come back oddly withdrawn and distracted for almost a week until Marty Dugan told a stupid particle physics joke during break and made him smile.

That one year- that one year it had been _bad_. He was gone for almost three weeks. He had come back tottering on a set of crutches with his right leg in a huge cast and about two-hundred plus stitches holding him together. Some of his injuries…Jesus, some of his injuries looked like he had been knifed. They had looked like claw marks. She didn't want to think about how much PT it had taken to get him out of that shape.

The Compy's parents had dropped him off at the dig two weeks later- it seemed totally unrelated, but her gut told her otherwise, and it was seldom wrong. What was the kid's name? Eric. Right.

He knew Dr. Brennan somehow. Of course, most of the kids that signed onto the U Montana summer program knew Dr. Brennan, but Eric seemed to know him personally. He was pretty self-possessed, and Dr. Brennan let him have free reign, so the kid had basically run around the dig asking uncomfortably relevant questions, poking into other people's projects, and generally being a completely annoying little snot.

It was awesome.

He pretty much _worshipped_ them, boosting their little undernourished grad student egos just by the little light in his eyes whenever they gave him a high five or asked him to go get them a tool from the box. When Mute had split his sandwich with him during lunch once, the expression on Eric's face had been almost painful to watch. Mute still forgot and packed two sandwiches some days; he usually got stuck trying to pass the extra sandwich off to someone else, which didn't work unless he pulled the trick on some newbie volunteers. Eric had been the only one able to stomach Mute's lettuce, cheese, and curried goat sandwiches.

He was the little paleo-freak brother they'd never had. Okay, so she had a little brother, but she wanted this one. One that painstakingly put together dinosaur models and could rattle off the Theropoda taxonomy like it was the alphabet. They called him the Compy, and the little shrimp glowed even more and wore the nickname around like a gold star.

She had expected him to be pretentious and whiny like most of the other kids in the summer program that boasted they were "way into science." Surprisingly, the Compy knew his stuff. He'd read all of Alan Grant's books and was doing an impressive job of keeping up with Dr. Brennan's publications. Even the research papers, and she didn't know how in the world he could understand those. When she'd asked him, he'd just told her he went to Google and his mom for words he didn't understand yet. She knew when some of the "way into science" kids were going to change their minds and become…goddamn political science majors and when they were going to stick to their guns. And this kid was like Timothy Murphy, beta version.

All the old hands at the dig still asked after him from time to time, but the Compy only came to visit once or twice a year nowadays. He had other stuff during the summer; 4-H camp, the YMCA. She guessed his parents had finally freaked about the whole dinosaur thing and enrolled him in stuff normal boys did so that when he went to prom he stood the chance of getting a date.

He looked so different every time he came. His hair was messier now- no longer soft and round and boyish. He had glasses, the beginnings of an impressive jaw, and his voice was getting kind of awkward. She felt oddly proud. Whenever she sent out cool news about the dig to her friends, she always made sure to CC him. He talked to Dr. Brennan too- when she had emailed him about the saurid, he had already known about it. That saurid, man. Best day of her life.

The day they had uncovered the rest of what had started out as a bit of vertebrae in cell C2, all the students had gone into town to celebrate at Stockman's Bar for Maurice's famous deep dish chicken pot pie and a bottle of Fort Peck's crisp locally brewed beer.

She knew for a fact Dr. Brennan had spent the night drinking in his trailer- she had passed by heading out with Rick and his buddies. She had seen him lean out the window to look at the fresh grid; he didn't seem to be enjoying himself, gulping the beer down like it was cough medicine. He was outlined a little by the blackness and stars and backlit by his old dim fluorescent lights.

He waved the bottle a little. "Cheers, Alan."

It was so faint. No, she must have imagined it.

She wondered why he never came with the students when they went out on the weekends unless he was asked. He was always on the dig or in the trailer. The only person on the dig he seemed vaguely close to was his assistant Cheryl Logan-Weiss.

She liked Cheryl. She was tough and efficient and great with the students. She knew her pretty well, and since they were the only two old girls still on the dig, they hung out together regularly during breaks. Not that she had anything against guys, but sometimes you just needed a little girl time.

They usually teamed up to put away the equipment at the end of the day. It was kind of relaxing, checking the tools, cleaning off the dust, and keeping up a constant stream of quiet undemanding small talk.

Today though, she was feeling thoughtful. Maybe it was the news crew from the beginning of the week.

"Cheryl, how long have you known Dr. Brennan?" She cleaned off the fold up bench and began loading the boxes of tools back onto it.

Cheryl was absently clicking out of a computer program. "Mm, we went to school together. He was a little older than me, actually."

"Why do you think he became a paleontologist?"

"Why?" She turned around. "Well, he majored in it. Went for his graduate degree, worked on this dig for so many years. I guess he can't imagine doing anything else."

"It just…doesn't seem like he enjoys paleontology, really," she said apologetically in a rush. "I know that's-"

"-No," Cheryl cut in. She sighed and rubbed the back of her sweaty neck. "You're right. He…he hates the bones, now. He didn't used to. God, if you could have seen him before. He was…_he was…_"

And the way Cheryl's eyes kind of melted made her think Cheryl and Dr. Brennan might have had something once.

"Are…were you…" God, this was such an awkward thing to ask.

"What?" Cheryl's eyes widened and there might have been a little blush under her tan. "No, he and I…we just worked together in grad school. We never…I thought maybe we could have…but he was never around for long- always at Dr. Grant's heels." She grinned a little. "Dr. Grant's second shadow. We made fun of him a lot about it. He was the dig assistant back then. Teaching us newbies about the difference between fossil and rock." She waved her finger in the air. "Smooth and rough. Smooth. Rough." Her hand lingered in the air a moment, tracing out phantom bones. Her expression was vague.

_She could have kissed him then, for all that they were down on their elbows and knees in the dirt. Things were still good between Adam and her- he was a good guy. But Billy Brennan, he was…man, she was almost afraid to say he was worth sacrificing her four year relationship. That was dangerous. She felt that space between them become palpable._

_And then she heard that telltale rattling, and an old beat up truck pulled up in a small cloud of dust. _

_Just as quickly, Billy was gone- she almost felt the air empty out as he ran across the site whooping Dr. Grant's name and yelling for Elliot to warm up the rapid prototyper they had just finished debugging._

_She realized maybe not then but later, much later after she'd had time to think about things and got a few good beers in her, that she wanted to accept that ring Adam was doing such a bad job of hiding in his apartment. Maybe she wanted to come home and have someone there run towards her, glad to see her and hoping she wouldn't leave again too soon._

---

The first time he drove up, Maria noticed him coming up from the main road right away from all the black he was wearing. Ian Malcolm- she knew him primarily as the San Diego guy, though apparently he was also a chaos theorist. She'd tried reading his books one time only because she'd once seen Dr. Brennan wandering around campus with a copy tucked under his arm. Malcolm came to visit the dig once or twice a year, usually with his girlfriend. She was a paleontologist too.

They all came once in a while. Ian Malcolm, Sarah Harding, the Deglers, the Murphys. The Compy with his family from Enid, Oklahoma. Such a strange mix of people. She sometimes wondered how they ever got along, what had brought them together. What made them keep coming back to each other.

Ian grinned lazily. He still had those boxy 50s sunglasses just because he knew they drove Sarah crazy. "How are you, kid?"

Dr. Brennan huffed a little, but he didn't look annoyed. Just tired. "Hey, Ian."

Ian Malcolm made a noise. "Hngh. I thought so."

"Ian," Billy grumbled.

Ian popped his shades down and looked over at Billy incredulously. "You're getting more like him every day- Jesus, it freaks me out."

Dr. Brennan had gone rigid. "Can we not talk about him here?" he said softly.

"Sure, kid. Sorry, didn't mean to…"

"I know."

Ian coughed uncomfortably. "Hey, so since you couldn't make it to our little bash last weekend, we decided to come to you. Sarah's here too. Brought some beer. You got a place we can crash for a few hours? Hang out?"

"Yeah. Trailer's back…" He gestured. "It's kind of messy, though."

"Yeah, right. Don't think I haven't heard about the laundry and dry cleaning from Lex and Tim." Ian cracked a grin at him. "Sarah's in the car- we're parked out front. Come on."

And then they were gone, and she wondered for the hundredth time what they sat around and talked about, what kind of things they saw in the smoke of Ian Malcolm's cigarette.

Dr. Brennan had shoved his hands in his pockets and was trailing behind Ian a little reluctantly.

"Sarah's going to be thrilled to see you."

"Sure. Haven't seen her in a long time. How is she?"

"She's getting on, yeah. How's the dig?" Ian looked back and cackled a little. "Hey, is that Alan's shirt?" He reached over, grabbed the collar, and tried to flip it up to see the label.

"No," Dr. Brennan lied a little too forcefully and shrugged off Ian's hand.

Ian let the matter go and put his hands in his pockets. "We were all kind of disappointed you didn't show. We were hoping you would come hang. Ellie says you don't call much anymore. You should get out more, kid. You're looking kind of grey around the hair."

"Yeah, well it's been busy between the dig and my job at U Montana. I don't get to see old friends as much as I'd like." It sounded so perfunctory, so mechanical.

Ian sighed. "Ellie...man, kid- Ellie thinks you blame her."

"What?" Dr. Brennan's head snapped at that. "She thinks that I- no way. I would never, I mean, you two have _families_. I'm glad you were- I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't found you. How can she think…"

"Well, what was she supposed to think? She and you." Ian twisted his fingers. "You two were like this. Double-teaming and ganging up on Alan- remember how he hated that?"

Dr. Brennan was smiling a little now. "Yeah. And Charlie called him Dinosa- hey, how is Charlie?"

"He's in middle school now."

"Wow. Charlie? Plastic spinosaurus Charlie? I…I never…"

Ian clapped him on the shoulder. "It's okay, kid. Stuff happens. Hey, getting your doctorate is a personal hell- I was seriously M.I.A for six years with mine."

Dr. Brennan shrugged. "I know. But…"

"Kid…this is going to sound real shitty, but it's been a long time, and you've got to let it go. It's just pure randomness of life. You never see stuff coming. God, shouldn't I know about that!" He barked out a laugh, but his eyes were kind of stiff.

Dr. Brennan smiled weakly. "It's all chaos, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Ian said softly. "Yeah, it is."


	5. Chapter 5

_With the Kirbys, it was always a little cold, a little clinical. Sure, they'd lied to him and almost cost him his life, but Billy had kind of lied to them too. They still called him once in a while though, and he appreciated that they were at least trying. They had warmed up and relaxed later, mostly because of Eric. They had even invited him to Thanksgiving this year, and Amanda had sent him a quiche through Eric when he had come up to visit. They were good people, really they were. They had just been good people stuck in an awful situation. He knew how that felt._

_Billy was used to Alan's old crowd stopping by his office at U Montana or at the dig- they all knew him too. Alan used to joke they stopped by to see Billy now and not him. _

_He got along surprisingly well with the Murphys. He usually spent his free time in the morning freaking out over new computer software and equipment with Lex. She'd actually been speechless the first time he introduced her to his baby, the rapid prototyper. It had been nothing back then- just a bare skeleton entrenched in a bed of tools, scraps of a cannibalized CPU, and what looked like a half constructed mechanical arm. _

_After Billy had finished explaining what it was supposed to do, she'd managed an awed breathy _"Cool," _and set to work helping him put together parts of the processor. There were scribbling and modification sketches all over his CAD diagrams by the time she was done, and she had promised to come back soon and work on it with him. Billy knew that with her connections they would be shipping off for parts in no time._

_He and Tim talked about dinosaur theories, swapped ideas about the research papers they'd read, and took turns worshipping Dr. Grant. They couldn't resist- Alan got embarrassed so easily._

_Even with Ellie and Ian, it was like family. He had even spent Christmas at Ellie's house once. Mark had hammered out some old songs on the piano as Alan lifted Charlie up so he could fix the crooked angel on the top of the tree. Things were okay between Alan and Mark now._

_In the beginning- God, even when they had gone to Ellie's wedding, it had been a gruff mano e mano thing with those two. The introductions had been awkward, and the handshake had been more like an arm wrestling match. Alan had been silent through the wedding, only exchanging grimacing smiles with people who stopped to say hello. Ellie was beautiful, she was glowing. Mark looked a little dazzled throughout the ceremony as if he had been hit on the head. Alan looked like he would have been happy to be the one to do it._

_Billy had put up with it until the reception when Alan had made himself an immutable fixture at the table in the back. He had got himself a cup of strong coffee and tried to hide there most of the night, rebuffing the polite advances of the other guests at his table._

_Billy had shot him glowers once in a while, but it was semi dark and Alan didn't seem to be looking. He finally had enough when Ellie looked up at them from talking to her mother-in-law, saw Alan, and stopped smiling just a little bit, just for a second._

"_Alan, could we talk for a minute?"_

_He got up to leave, thought better of leaving his salad at the mercy of Mrs. Marriott's awful young son, and took it with him as he steered Alan into the deserted hall near the front entrance._

"_Billy," he sounded annoyed."What is this about?"_

"_Look," he hissed. "I know you don't think Mark is good enough for Ellie-"_

"_-Billy," Alan began._

_He poked him in the chest with his salad fork. "-Alan, shut up and listen. This is her day, and you're ruining it for her."_

_That pretty much silenced him right there, and he looked contrite. _

"_I know you don't think Mark deserves Ellie, but she deserves to be happy. And you should be happy _for _her."_

"_She should be. I am."_

_Billy sighed and loosened the tie around his neck. It felt too tight all of a sudden. "I know this is tough. I don't know what happened between you two, and I don't expect you to tell me. But I've gone through this kind of thing before. Yeah, it sucks, but you have to move on."_

"_Probably shouldn't surprise you, but I'm…not good at that," Alan confessed. "I can't get another kind of bread when they change brands. I work in a field that hasn't gone anywhere for sixty-five million years."_

_Billy laughed. "Well, you can start by going into the line and getting something else to eat besides coffee. They've got chess pie. You like chess pie." Actually, he kind of suspected Ellie had ordered it just because she knew Alan was going to come. "And then you're going to go ask Dr. Cummings if she'd like to dance. She's been looking over at your table all evening."_

"_I don't dance, you know."_

"_I don't care. Learn, wing it. Evolve."He grinned. "The dinosaurs finally turned into...you know, flamingos and swans. I'd say you've got a chance."_

_Alan groaned. "That's not too encouraging." But he smiled. "Thanks."_

_And then he reached over to ruffle his hair, and Billy wondered if he had been sneaking glasses of wine between the cups of coffee. _

_When they got back, Alan got himself a slice of pie and went over to talk with Dr. Zhang, who had previously attempted a conversation on learned behavior in raptor nesting sites._

_Evolve and try to move on- sometimes that was all you could do. Billy sat back down and grinned at the Marriotts. If his loose tie and messy hair made them look at him and then back to Alan a little suspiciously, well…hell with what they thought._

---

"Hey, Maria, could you run these down to Dr. Brennan? He's mailing his packet to the department today, and I'd like this to get there sooner rather than waiting around another two weeks for another update report to get sent out."

"Sure."

She knocked on the trailer door. "Dr. Brennan?"

The trailer was like the dig office. There were two huge tables covered in fossils waiting to be tagged and labeled. Other bones were being soaked in cracked ceramic bowls of cleaning solution. There was a neatly organized pile of papers at one end of a table. Dr. Brennan's bi-weekly report back to the paleontology department.

The trailer was old- he took care of it painstakingly. Every weekend she saw him sweeping the floors, wiping down the tables, and doing the dishes that piled up during the week. She had lived with a slob of a roommate for two years; she could probably write her own book on chaos theory just by documenting Becca's side of the apartment.

Which is why she loved this trailer and came to help with the fossils whenever she could. Everything was immaculate.

The only thing out of place was the couch, a mess of pillows and blankets.

"Dr. Brennan?"

She wandered over to the kitchen, which was bare and wiped clean. There was a warped folding table jammed into one of the corners. The tack board propped up on it was covered with notes, pictures, sticky notes. Old newspaper clippings.

She stooped a little closer. The tacks were rusty; she didn't know what was holding some of this stuff up.

_Famous Archaeologist Missing_

_Dr. Alan Grant Presumed Dead_

_World Mourns Pioneer_

_Costa Rica Declassifies Sorna_

There was a framed picture leaning against the tackboard. God, was that _Dr. Brennan_? He looked so young. He looked so different. His eyes didn't light up like that anymore. And there was Alan Grant next to him- as if she could ever forget that face. From the background, it looked like they were in the Badlands during a summer dig. Dr. Brennan was grinning like a loon and had an arm around Grant.

"_Dr. Grant! Billy! A picture. It's the last day of the dig."_

"_Miss Logan, we'll be back next year."_

_Billy laughed. "Come on, Alan. It's one picture." He had an arm slung around Dr. Grant before he could protest. "Hey, Cheryl, send me a copy when you get it developed, okay?"_

"_Sure, Billy."_

"_Maybe I can get it autographed."_

_That got a genuine smile from Dr. Grant. "You sign for my shipments. You could forge my signature easily enough."_

"_Al-an, what kind of person do you think I am?" Billy sounded offended, but he was laughing._

"_Smile, guys!" _

_Click. Flash._

She didn't hear the door squeak open and the boots.

"You needed something?" Dr. Brennan said.

She whirled around and ran into the table. She heard something fall. "No, sir! I'm…I'm sorry- I didn't mean to poke around. Cheryl wanted to give you-"

But Dr. Brennan's eye had gone to the knocked over picture frame. He pushed past her gently, picked up the photo of himself with Alan Grant, and studied it for a moment. "He was my advisor. My friend," he said in a softer voice. "I…we were a team." He cleared his throat. "Worked with him as a grad student. Your age. An honor."

"It's an honor working with you too."

Dr. Brennan smiled a little at that, but it was humorless. Sarcastic. "Yeah." He looked at the picture again as if he could bore holes into it. "That's what students used to tell him too." He snorted. "He was an awkward old dinosaur, but we got along alright. I got him out of this damn trailer every Friday night and we'd go down to Stockman's for a drink. He'd let me beat him at pool. Maurice'd force some of his chicken pie on us- yep," he said when he saw her expression. "They were around back then- as famous then as they are now."

"I'm…" she couldn't look at the newspaper clippings, so painstakingly cut out and tacked up. "I'm sorry."

"I looked for him." His voice sounded so tired. "Told them I was doing research. I looked for him. Everywhere. Even on Isla Sorna." The lines around his mouth deepened. "I thought I could…they thought I was there looking for Eric Kirby."

"They declassified Isla Sorna because of this, didn't they?" she said slowly. "Because of Dr. Grant going missing. Otherwise…otherwise they wouldn't have said anything."

"Yeah. The thing about InGen is they're never willing to give up all their cards," he said bitterly. "Damn Peter Ludlow. They thought they could keep going on Sorna, but it's destroyed now, abandoned. Well, except for the dinosaurs, of course." He tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. "Sorry, I think you'd better go."

She nodded and fled, closing the door behind her. Cheryl could get Dr. Brennan the papers some other time. This was…this was too private. She couldn't help thinking about the snapshot and how Dr. Brennan had been crowding Alan Grant's personal space like he didn't care. Any closer and it wouldn't have been appropriate; any closer and Dr. Brennan's curly hair would have been touching the side of Grant's jaw.

---

Billy traced the picture frame and wiped dust from the glass.

Jesus, that old dilapidated couch was hell on his back. But…

But it would have felt weird sleeping in Alan's fold up bed. It was weird enough using his plates at dinner and putting his own toothbrush beside the old red one in the cup by the sink. It almost felt like living with him; he could almost pretend Alan had just left or was in the kitchen discovering new ways to burn coffee. Sometimes when he turned off the radio, in those few seconds of sunken airwave silences he swore he could hear the faint noises of Alan snoring with his hat over his eyes or ranting on the phone with Ian at the other end of the room.

God, he was rooming with a ghost. Images on top of images. Like a watermark or a photograph negative. Fingerprints left on glass. How could he chase something years in the past, something that was moving further and further away?

Evolve and try to move on- sometimes that was all you could do.


	6. Epilogue

He kept thinking that if Ellie'd had it her way, she'd be trailing behind him smiling quietly to herself.

He kept telling himself that.

He would have felt her pleased expectant (Expecting what, Ellie? Expecting what?) little grin boring into his back.

Everything looked so foreign now, though. He would have liked her support, the strength of her arm at his elbow. The dig pulled into view. God, it was still there.

---

"Dr. Brennan?"

"Hmm?"

"There's a car right outside the dig site. Just pulled up."

Dr. Brennan sighed. "Ian. Again. What is it this time?"

"It's not Ian Malcolm. I think it's one of our new sponsors."

Dr. Brennan's face soured a little. If this was another InGen representative trying to buy forgiveness with a little funding, he was going to get violent. How many times had he told them he didn't need their blood money?

Maria Wallace was working with the thumper looking for potential fossils on the radar screen when she saw the taxi pull up. The guy stepped out and paid the driver. Man, she didn't want to take this guy in a fight- he looked tough. Tired looking and a little too thin, but tough. Who the hell was endorsing-

"_Alan!_"

And Dr. Brennan was running across the site like a shot.

He didn't even slow down, just crashed into Alan Grant, got a good grip around his neck, and didn't let go.

Dr. Grant grunted a little from the impact and staggered. He had lost too much weight- nothing to eat but old canned food and (God help him) dead leftovers from following behind the carnivores. They'd pumped him up with some pretty nasty injections for that one.

His hands were darting uncertainly near Dr. Brennan's shoulders, not knowing what to do. "Billy! What in- you're...What are you-"

He could feel Billy exhale once, deep and drained. "Alan. God. They said you were, I thought, I didn't want to- _Alan._"

Dr. Grant's expression was scrambled, ill-fitting. His movements awkward. "Billy...I'm sorry."

"You were _gone_." His voice was muffled in Dr. Grant's old plaid button up. It looked like one of Mark's. His mind was cataloguing a million things at once. Alan looked okay, but his shirt smelled like hospital disinfectant, and there were stitches along his forehead; he could feel the faint marks of band-aids on his left arm. How long had they kept him in the hospital? "You were gone, and there was nowhere I could... I looked _everywhere._"

And Dr. Grant's arms finally engulfed Billy's shoulders and squeezed once, self-consciously. "I know," he said. "You did everything you could." He could feel Billy shaking against him. "Hey...hey, you're alright. Come on." He pounded his fist against Billy's shoulder twice. "You toughed it out. And that's _good_. That's real good."

Dr. Brennan sounded like he was choking. She realized it was laughter. Bitter. Brittle. "Me? No. I...I didn't. I..._godamn_, it's good to have you back, Alan."

He suddenly felt the pairs of eyes on them and stiffened, pulling away. He looked back at Alan Grant.

And suddenly dazzling grin fired across his face like a starburst and clung there. His whole frame resonated. Dr. Brennan was one of those people that smiled with his entire body. She had never known.

He finally looked his age. No, he looked younger than that. As young as the young graduate student in the dusty photograph tucked against the lonely tack board in the kitchen.

Wallace caught herself staring and noticed other people do the same. God, she didn't know why she had never noticed before but Dr. Brennan...man, Dr. Brennan was _hot._

Some of the students were looking a little dazzled. Grant just smiled familiarly back like he was used to it. Guess he was. He'd had years to build up the immunity.

Dr. Brennan cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed now. "People, you might have heard of this old guy once or twice-" Grant took off his hat and thwacked it against Brennan's shoulder. Dr. Brennan laughed. She found herself smiling, surprised at how infectious it was.

"Can see you haven't gotten any less annoying, Mr. Brennan," Grant grumbled.

Brennan just grinned at him stupidly. "You haven't gotten any less cheerful either, Dr. Grant."

Dear God, Dr. Brennan was _teasing_. He closed his mouth abruptly. "Sorry, guys." He jerked his thumb over. "This is Dr. Alan Grant. Get to know him, cause you're going to be seeing a lot of him. Don't worry, he'll avoid signing all your books and photos later." Dr. Grant laughed at that. "Alan..." His eyes had gone kind of soft. He waved a hand. "This is your team."

Grant studied them grimly for a minute. "They pretty good?" he asked.

Dr. Brennan shrugged. "Eh, they're alright." But there was fierce pride in his expression.

"Probably too much to hope you haven't rubbed off on them."

Dr. Brennan laughed. "Al-_an_."

"And I suppose you've got more of those damned computers."

"I had some set up when I heard _you_ were coming back," Dr. Brennan said casually, but his voice croaked a little on the last syllables.

Grant either didn't notice or pretended he hadn't. "Hey, heard _you_ found an _Anatotitan copei _out here recently."

That ridiculous grin again. It wouldn't stay off his face. From the wistful look on Cheryl's face, she suspected it used to be there a lot. Explained all the faint spidery lines around his mouth. She had thought they were age lines.

"Oh my God, Alan, we found her two summers ago. She was...it was like..." He gestured abstractly, then suddenly pointed at her. "She found the first piece of vertebrae behind the main tent- Miss Wallace. Maria." He beamed at her. "Cell C-2. Couldn't forget it if I tried."

Damn, she could feel herself blushing. "Y-yeah."

And then he abruptly turned back to Dr. Grant. "You want to see her, Alan?" he demanded and steered him past the main tent without waiting for an answer. "God, she's beautiful." He stopped for a second. "Well, don't everybody rush back to work at once."

People dispersed a little too quickly, a little too self-consciously.

Dr. Grant looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Intimidation, Billy?"

"Check," Dr. Brennan replied. "I only learn from the best." Without turning around, "Maria, you found it. Want to come along?"

"Sure, Dr. Brennan."

Grant's eyebrows rose. "_Dr._ Brennan, hm?"

Dr. Brennan grinned back. "Yeah, Alan. I'm just like you now."

"He sure is." Cheryl held out a hand. "Hi, Dr. Grant, great to have you back."

She always took everything in stride. She left all the hard questions to Billy for later.

Grant shook her hand. "Cheryl. Cheryl Logan."

"Wow, haven't been called Logan in a long time. You remember."

"Sure." He squinted over at Dr. Brennan, who shrugged and said, "She's my dig assistant."

"I see."

"It's Logan-Weiss now, actually," she said a little too quickly.

"Oh." Dr. Grant nodded. "Well congratulations." He smirked. "Can't wait to meet the Mrs. Brennan."

Cheryl looked over at Billy and opened her mouth as if to say something.

"-Yeah, neither can I, Alan." Dr. Brennan shot back.

Cheryl closed her mouth and shrugged a little. Maybe that was the hard question she'd leave to Dr. Grant.

But they were already going on without her. They did that in the old days too- she had learned not to feel resentful. Dr. Grant and Billy- they'd always had their own drummer. Sometimes she was just content to sit back and listen.

"Is that really my truck parked out front?"

"Yep.'

"It should have fallen apart by now. That thing was old when it was new."

"Well, I've been taking good care of her. 'Car Talk.' NPR."

Grant smiled. "You still listen to that?"

"Best show ever. You shouldn't have got me hooked."

The volunteers in the morning had taken tarp off the copei already. The bones poked out like umbrella spokes, smooth and earthy.

Dr. Brennan made some kind of vague sweeping gesture, as if he didn't know what to point at first. "Just look at her, Alan."

But Dr. Grant wasn't looking over the grid. He was staring down at the pale scar tissue on Brennan's arm. "Billy. Where did you..."

Dr. Brennan followed his gaze and opened then closed his mouth. He dropped his arm and rubbed at the scars speculatively. "I went to Jurassic Park," he admitted quietly and Grant jerked back like he'd been sucker punched.

"_You went to the island?_"

"Told you I looked for you everywhere, Alan," Dr. Brennan's smile was humorless, compressed. "Couldn't find you on Isla Nublar -you know how long it took me to get clearance to go over there?"

"John Hammond," Dr. Grant guessed.

"Yep, got that call from John Hammond you'd warned me about. He's a good guy. Someday you'll have to tell me what you did to get him to look so guilty whenever I brought up your name." He trailed off expectantly, but when Dr. Grant said nothing, he just shrugged. "Then InGen went public after you...there was this thing with the Kirbys...long story. Anyway, we sneaked into Site B. The factory. The...the dumping ground."

"Don't say it like that." His voice was rough. "Don't talk about it like it's..."

"Happened there," Dr. Brennan continued. "Sorna. Pterosaurs. They can be pretty nasty." A weak attempt at humor. "By the way, I think you were right about your raptor intelligence theory after all."

A shadow of horror passed over Dr. Grant's face. "Raptors. _God_. If they had...and you were..."

"They talk to each other, you know that? Communication- really great...social networking. This thing-" he pulled the rawhide string out from his shirt. Something was dangling on it. "I programmed my rapid prototyper to make this. Duplicated their resonating chamber. They had us surrounded- this thing saved my life." He put it to his lips, blew out two short bursts. That sound. There was no way that piece of bicarbonate had produced that sound- primeval and savage and piercing.

Grant's face darkened, and he stared a little too hard at Dr. Brennan's mouth. There was strain around his eyes.

"Alan?" Dr. Brennan dropped the bicarbonate, put a hand on his shoulder and shook him a little. "Alan, are you okay?"

"Hm?" Dr. Grant blinked. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." His put a hand to his face. "Bad memories."

Dr. Brennan grinned. "You're telling _me_." But his eyes mirrored Dr. Grant's. Haunted. Old.

"So, um..." Dr. Grant cleared his throat. "Tell me about the _Anatotitan copei._"

"Huh?" His face brightened. "Yeah, sure!" He took his arm and dragged him over to the other side of the grid, talking nonstop.

"You won't get a word in edgewise." Maria felt Cheryl's hand on her shoulder. "They just go on and on and forget where they are." She snorted a little. "Scientists." She jerked her head. "Come on, let's go."

It all felt vaguely anticlimactic. In the morning tomorrow he would open his eyes and still be squashed against that rickety old couch. He would hear Alan's snoring coming from the fold up bed and remember this day, right now, and start shaking uncontrollably from the sustained tension. He would press his face against the cushions to smother his small pathetic sounds of relief.

But that was for tomorrow. Today, he just trailed Alan around like the second shadow he had been teased about all the time as a grad student.

"So why didn't they tell me they found you? When did they find you?"

Grant looked over. Billy was looking over the grid not meeting his eyes. Grant had hoped this wouldn't come up till later. "Last month."

Last month. Ian's cookout party with all the old Jurassic Park gang. All the phone calls. Ian and Sarah stopping by to see him. God, he was an idiot. "Why didn't they tell me?"

"Ellie and Ian...thought it would be too much for you at once- from what they told me, you took it pretty hard."

"Of course I took it hard, Alan. Everybody did. I don't see what-"

"-They wanted to ease you into it. They didn't want you to see me right away. Billy, I was a mess. They made me stay in the hospital for almost five weeks. They only let me go because I wore Ellie down and my physical therapist said it would do me some good. I'm supposed to go back."

"For how long?" God, Alan was still so thin.

"I...don't know."

"Can I come and see you?"

"Of course. They're moving me to Bozeman Deaconess down on Highland Street."

"Are you coming back to the dig?" God, that was such a bad question. Alan had probably got more than his share of dinosaurs on Sorna-

"-You shouldn't even have to ask that question."

That surprised him. "Really?"

Alan grinned. "Really."

"Huh." It was all he could say. He'd always imagined himself jumping up and down, but he just felt numb. Things wouldn't...go back to the way they used to be, but it was enough. Things between Alan and him wouldn't be the same as his old grad student days either, but maybe that was good. Maybe they had both evolved. But he still felt a sudden bitter longing for the old days.

"So...when's the press coming?"

"Mark's actually handling that, actually."

Mark. He figured as much. "They'd better not stomp all over the dig."

Alan laughed at that. Billy sounded like him sometimes- Ian had said the same thing. He didn't know whether that was funny or just outright depressing. "They're not leaking it until I'm back on my feet. We've got at least another month." He was wearing a strange expression on his face. "During which Ian and Sarah told me to get you out of your trailer once in a while."

It should have been hilarious. It wasn't. "I've kind of...lost touch with them."

"Which is why Ellie said she'd let us catch up, but we'd better stop by and visit soon."

"Ellie's orders?"

"You know how good she is at tacking on threats when she's happy to see you."

He laughed. "Yeah." He cleared his throat. "Um..."

He wanted to ask the hard questions. He wanted to ask how had they found him. How had Alan pulled an Eric Kirby and survived on that hell island. But he felt Alan's eyes saying 'Soon,' and 'Later, Billy,' and 'Just let me be happy to be back for a while.'

He wheeled around instead. "Hey, where'd Cheryl and Maria go?"

Maria watched them come back, watched Dr. Brennan softly punch Grant's shoulder, not knowing if he could, not knowing where it hurt.

"I'll, uh, email the department later and get you back on the roster."

"Billy, you know, I'd like you to stay with the dig."

She noticed how Grant called Dr. Brennan 'Billy' and tried hard not to find that cute.

"I don't know." he gestured towards the main tent where Cheryl Logan-Weiss was cleaning off some of the tools. "I don't want Cheryl getting fired over seniority- she does good work. I can work with her as co-dig assistant or something."

"_Not_ so fast there, Mr. Brennan," Grant said. "I was thinking we would head the dig together."

"Together?" Dr. Brennan's mouth moved soundlessly. "Like, a collaborative...thing?"

"Yes, Billy, a 'collaborative thing.' I mean," he shrugged. "You've been doing a hell of a job running your own dig."

"No, Alan." Dr. Brennan smiled. "I've been running _your_ dig."

Grant looked like he didn't quite know what to say.

Dr. Brennan smiled wider. "So, want to go back to Stockman's today? You look like you need a drink and a round of pool."

He grinned at him. "Is Maurice still around?"

"With his chicken pot pies? Hell yes. You hungry?"

"Kind of." He didn't say that nowadays after leaving the island, he always felt hungry. "Not supposed to eat too much...Anything in the fridge?"

"Uh, some cream cheese. Waffles. Bottle of champagne."

"Champagne?"

"Yeah." Billy grinned at him. "Since John Hammond guzzled down the last one, I've been saving it for a special occasion."

In the distance Maria could see them walking back to the trailer, their figures a little dark and blurred in the sunset. Dr. Brennan turned and said something- whatever it was, Grant laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder. The look on Dr. Brennan's face was something unquantifiable. Ah. Some things made sense now.

It was a pity Alan Grant would never figure out what a lucky man he was.

-END-

* * *

**Penelópē** (_Πηνελόπεια/Πηνελόπη_) is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who waits for him in his long ten year absence at his kingdom in Ithaca and is eventually rejoined with him.


End file.
